Holistic approach can help remove poverty
Speakers at a book launching ceremony in Dhaka yesterday stressed the need to know the roots and its reemergence for poverty eradication.
Professor Muinul Islam, the writer of the book 'The Poverty Discourse and Participatory Action Research in Bangladesh', suggested a holistic approach to the curse of poverty.
“If we really want to remove poverty from the country, a holistic approach to the issue and recognition to it as a discourse will help us,” Islam, who teaches Economics at Chuittagong University, told the function, jointly organised by Bangladesh Economic Association and Research Initiatives Bangladesh at the BEA auditorium.
Pointing to the attitudes of lenders like World Bank and International Monetary Fund to poverty, Professor Islam said, “These organisations deem poverty a subject of aid and microcredit, but foreign aid or microcredit is no answer to the problem.”
He also put emphasis on a change in government mindset to get rid of poverty, suggesting a participatory action research incorporating the 'missing poor' like sweeper, cobbler and different indigenous communities, who are even beyond the reach of microcredit.
The government should take initiatives for agricultural and land reforms and ensuring quality education, health for the poor, the writer said.
He also advocated developing a networking system of disadvantaged groups to elicit opinions on their problems and find out solutions.
The book is a result of the research conducted on as many as 18 minority communities.
BEA President Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad said the government needs to consider the issue of poverty elimination with a broader perspective that would accumulate voices from academics, researchers, local policy makers and poor community representatives, who would work together to fight poverty.
Dr Mohammed Farashuddin, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank, and Shamsul Bari, president of RIB, were also present.
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